Okamoto Kihachi (岡本喜八)
Kihachi OKAMOTO (February 17, 1924 - February 19, 2005) was a film director in Japan. His real name is Kihachiro OKANOTO.
Career
He was born in Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture. After he graduated from Yonago Shoyogakko (Yonago commercial and sericultural institute) (present Tottori Prefectural Yonagominami High School), he went to Tokyo, and after he graduated from the Commercial Department of the Professional Course at Meiji University, he joined Toho Co., Ltd. to become an assistant film director. However, with the aggravation of the war situation, he was called to duty and joined an army technical training school, Rikugun Kohei Gakko in Matsue, and he greeted the end of the war at Toyohashi Yobishikan Gakko (preliminary military academy to foster junior army officers). During his stay in Toyohashi, he witnessed numerous fellow soldiers' deaths, and he conceived a great anger to the war.
After being demobilized, he rejoined Toho Co., Ltd., and accumulated experiences under such film directors as Masahiro MAKINO, Senkichi TANIGUCHI, Mikio NARISE, and Ishiro HONDA. In 1957, against the announcement of Toho to produce a movie "The Young Beast" with the direction of the author of the original, Shintaro ISHIHARA, the assistant directors stood up against the company's plan, then Toho decided to celebrate a scenario selection and promote the best play-writer to the director's post, and Okamoto was picked up for his scenarios of "Desperado Outpost" and "Aa bakudan" (Ah bomb). In 1958, he made his cinematographic debut with "All About Marriage." He garnered attention in one bound as a promising young director by his fifth film "Dokuritsu Gurentai" (Desperado Outpost), which incorporated the elements of cowboy pictures and mysteries into a scene of Mainland China during the middle of the Sino-Japanese War, and since then, he directed pictures with a wide range of genres such as: "Westward Desperado (undefined)/ Westward Independent Gangsters (literal title)" (1960), "The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman" (International: English title) (1963), "Aa bakudan" (1964), "Samurai Assassin" (1965), "Japan's Longest Day" (1967), and "Human Bullet" (1968). Especially, "The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman," for its uniquely cynical point of view on the mind-set of a man of his generation that lived through World War II in his youth, and "Human Bullet," for its interpretation mixed with comical elements, have been highly evaluated to date, and he himself commented during his life that these two were his favorite films.
Since the late 1970s, after having left Toho, he directed such films: "Dynamite Bang Bang" (informal literal English title) (1978), "At This Late Date, the Charleston" (1981), and "Dixieland Daimyo" (1986). His film "Rainbow Kids" (1991) won the Japan Academy Prize for best director and best screenplay, and since then many of his films began to further enhance the entertaining aspect.
In 1995, while he did his first location shoots in the Unites States for the film "East Meets West" he suddenly had a speech disorder, and was diagnosed with intradural hematoma/subfural hemorrhaging. Afterwards, he also suffered a slight cerebral infraction etc., and had speech difficulty. During the process of filming "Vengeance for Sale," its leading actor Hiroyuki SANADA served him as his assistant in conveying messages and giving instructions (even at the premier presentation, the actor stayed with him on the stage while he was making a speech, and sat close to him in order to inform him of the reactions of the spectators). However, in the interviews and lectures he firmly responded to questions including those on his rather old films, and he never lost the desire to make new films. To finalize his speech at the premier of "Sukedachi-ya Sukeroku" (Vengeance for Sale), he gave a cue in a forceful tone of voice, 'Here we go!' to start the film.
On February 19, 2005, he died from cancer of the esophagus at his home at Tama Ward, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. He was 81 years old. His grave is found in the Sainen-ji Temple in Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture as well as in Shunju-en Cemetery in Tama Ward, Kawasaki City. Until the last minute of his death, he had an idea to film "Gento Tsujibasha" (Magic lantern stage carriage) by Futaro YAMADA as his newest film, for which he had already decided to cast Tatsuya NAKADAI, Hiroyuki SANADA, and Ken OGATA among others, with music by Yosuke YAMASHITA, and he was developing the script, but the film was never realized.
Style
It is said that he was a director with craftsmanship, and he decided on the sequence of cuts in tenths of a second, before shooting. He was outstanding in the Japanese film world for his sense of rhythm created by the images composed of fragmented cuts and his up-tempo tense sequences, and in this sense, he is comparable to his senior associate at TOHO, Kon ICHIKAWA. However, in contrast to Ichikawa, who was good at depicting women, he specialized in movies performed by actors in leading roles, and his forte flourished in action comedies such as "Epoch of Murder Madness" (1967), influencing many young people at that time including Hayao MIYAZAKI. He was an exceptional technician not only in the big-scale movies such as "Japan's Longest Day" and "Blood Type: Blue" (1978), which show us his impressive interpretation full of immediacy, but also in female movies such as "One Day I," which show us his fine interpretations with flowing love scenes. While Ichikawa who was devoted to aestheticism and taste, was sometimes criticized as a 'director without theme,' Okamoto had advocated the opposition against war and against the Meiji Restoration as his life theme. He certainly used humorous expressions in many films such as "Dixieland Daimyo," but some scenes of "Blood Type: Blue," in which riot policemen rushed into a public meeting to give severe blows to the participants, show that he was anti-authority, and it looks like a movie made by a certain baby-boomer director (the generation born after the World War II and was washed by the wave of student movement).
In addition to casting leading actors such as Toshiro MIFUNE, Tatsuya NAKADAI, Mitsuru SATO, and Keiju KOBAYASHI, for supporting roles he repeatedly picked up such male actors with colorful characters like Ichiro NAKATANI, Kunie TANAKA, Yunosuke ITO, Hideyo AMAMOTO, Shin KISHIDA, Tadao NAKAMARU, Akihiko HIRATA, Minori TERADA, Hideo SUNADUKA, Daigo KUSANO, Etsushi TAKAHASHI, Hirotaro HONDA, Shigeru KAMIYAMA, Masao IMAFUKU, Masanari NIHEI, and Ittoku KISHIDA, and they are called 'Kihachi Ikka' or 'Kihachi Family.'
In contrast to Teruo ISHII of the same generation (he publicly declared that he hated actors from the new school of drama, and he often assuredly destroyed the flow of the film even if it was an entertaining movie), Okamoto was a director with the spirit of a true artisan and always sought refinement, dandy-ism, and well-made jobs, by using experienced actors like Eijiro TONO and Eitaro OZAWA, and other actors from Shingeki (the new school of drama), who were trained to pronounce the lines clearly.
Since the 1970s, he had to live a long period of time in which he was not able to shoot the films, and therefore, he had a certain aspect of unfortunate genius. However, he was one of the directors who maintained a contract with Toho to the end, even in face of Toho's drastic cut-down in production (Toho decided to reduce the number of its production to only several films a year, the level of an independent production company, and that was a complete volte-face deemed as a practical halt in production), and for a while, he was said to be the director with the highest guarantee fee in Japan. Compared to his rivals in the same generation, belonging to the so called modern school (Tadashi SAWASHIMA, Yasuzo MASUMURA, Ko NAKAHIRA, etc.), it can be said that he lived a considerably happy movie life in a sense.
He received several movie awards, and the reevaluation of his cult-like small old pieces made while he was still alive gave him a chance to film several new movies in his final years. His films, even small pieces like the so called 'program pictures,' conserve an air of sophisticated freshness, and even nowadays, they are enjoyable as pure entertaining movies. Thus, most of his films have been given the chance to be re-screened or broadcasted, and we are able to acknowledge their high quality in general. In 2007, a special screening session of his films was held in Germany, in addition to the reputation gained in the Unites States (it is said that John MILIUS, a film director, among others is an enthusiast of his films), his films have began to be appraised in Europe, as well.
Influences
Among the film critics, those who often review foreign movies, such as Juzaburo FUTABA, Kosei ONO, Mitsutoshi ISHIGAMI, Nobuhiko KOBAYASHI, and Takuya MORI, have published articles to celebrate Kihachi OKAMOTO for his work. He made the top ten of the "Kinema Junpo" (Cinema quarter) six times, and this number is unexpectedly small in comparison with his fame, because many of his films were too unique that they used to be ranked between 11th and 20th. In case of "Blood Type: Blue," which did not gain a good reputation at all, when it was released to the public for the first time, only a few mighty critics such as Shinichi HOSHI, Michio Tsuzuki, and Komimasa TANAKA expressed extremely good reactions.
Among writers, Yasutaka TSUTSUI has been well known as an enthusiast of Kihachi since his youth, and dedicated an homage to the director in his first full-length novel "Umanokubi Fuunroku" (Adventurous chronicle of 'Horse Neck'), etc. When Tsutsui's novel "Jazz Daimyo" (Dixieland Daimyo) was made into a movie by his heart-throb director, his dream had come true.
Hideaki ANNO, an animated film director, is also known as a great admirer of Okamoto, and there is a famous anecdote that the letters 'BLOOD TYPE BLUE' displayed as a wavelength pattern of the "Shito" (Apostle) in his animated film "Neon Genesis EVANGELION" was derived from the English title "Blood Type: Blue." In the animated film "Aim for the Top: GunBuster" created by the same director Anno, he copied several lines from Okamoto's film, "The Battle of Okinawa" (1971), such as, 'there are too many ships that I can't see the sea,' and '70% is occupied by ships and 30% by the sea,' and he imitated a subtitle giving the phrase 'XX thousand bombshell shots/ xx thousand rocket bombs,' as an homage, and when "The Battle of Okinawa" was released on Laserdisc (LD), Anno also wrote liner notes. Since then the line 'there are too many ships...' became very famous and it is parodied in an animation "Night Wizard, The Animation," and a game "Otaku Masshigura" (or re-parodied).
Among the students of the 'Kihachi family,' which used very limited, almost only two, fixed assistant directors, those who became film directors are limited to almost only two, Susumu TAKEBAYASHI and Michio YAMAMOTO, and they supported Okamoto in more than a dozen films, respectively. Among the students in his later stage, Kensho YAMASHITA served as a backup director in "Eireitachi no Oenka" (The Last Game) (International: English title), although he had already been promoted to director at that time, Go RIJU took charge of as a joint script writer, leading actor, and assistant director for "Chikagoro naze ka Charusuton" (At This Late Date, the Charleston) at the age of only 19, and Yusuke OKADA, actual President of Toho, worked as a producer and at the same time as the leading actor in "Battle Cry/ Go for Broke." Especially the latter two cases can be considered invaluable because they were given a chance to debut using the scarce resources of Kihachi Productions Co., Ltd.
Personal Profile
As he was a person of well-rounded personality with common sense, he was popular among the actors and staff, and was endearingly called 'Kihacchan' by the senior associates and colleagues. Toshiro MIFUNE appeared in only one scene in Okamoto's first film "All About Marriage" for the role of a ballet instructor, and his "Un-due-trios" pronounced in a deep voice and with a funny costume of tights draw our belly laughs. It is said that Mifune participated in the film because he was living in the same apartment house where Okamoto had been living since he was an assistant director, and as they were getting on well with each other, Mifune took part in the film with good grace to celebrate Okamoto's promotion to director.
When Norihiko OBAYASHI made his debut in commercial films with the Toho movie, "House (movie)," Obayashi, who did not have any experience as an assistant director, was met by backlash from some of the persons working in the studio, and therefore, Okamoto walked around to persuade these persons, saying 'let's study what to study accepting a new wind.'
After many years later, when Obayashi came to be informed of it from a third person, he expressed great gratitude for Okamoto's favor (that means, Okamoto never showed him a patronizing attitude).
On the other hand, he held on to the attitude of doing a good job, without compromise. It is well known that when he had a conflict with the powerful camera operator, Kazuo MIYAGAWA, over the script of "Zatoichi Meets Yojinbo," finally he pushed through with his continuity, and art director Yoshinobu NISHIOKA recalled another anecdote occurred while a TV drama "Kinagashi Bugyo" was in shooting (Nishioka was involved in it as President of the production company at that time); in which Okamoto almost stepped down in anger for some reason in the middle of the production, and the producer team hastily visited him at home and kneeled down on the ground in front of the entrance to beg him to calm down (from Yoshioka's book on the back lot anecdotes in TV drama production "Monjiro mo Onihei mo Inugamike mo Koshite Dekita").
He had many lodgers and dependents at his house, including actress Naoko OTANI, TV director Kan ISHIBASHI, and script writer Hiroshi NAGANO, and in the case of Ichiro NAKATANI, he lived with the Okamotos for several years. In a NHK documentary program broadcasted in 1994, Otani visited Okamoto's home and had an interview with Okamoto and his wife. The interview was recorded in a friendly atmosphere as if Otani had visited her home to see her parents. Soon after this visit, Otani got a divorce from Koji SHIMIZU, although it is unknown whether she consulted over her divorce with Okamoto and his wife at that occasion or if it was a mere coincidence.
Tomoyuki TANAKA, who is a producer and worked together with Okamoto for a long time, is also famous for having fostered special effects movies at Toho, however, as Okamoto declared publicly that he disliked special effects (probably in his film he could not accept the production system containing a part which was out of his control), Tanaka never proposed him any plans of that type. He was to direct only one film with special effects with a popular comic group, Crazy Cats, called 'Nihon Apacchizoku' (The Japanese apache) written by Sakyo KOMATSU, but the shooting was called off in the last minute.
He never stayed still on the director's chair and worked diligently, walking around more actively than his assistant directors, and his manor of working brought about an anecdote; when a visitor to the studio asked him where was the director, he pretended to be ignorant by pointing out to the lighting director.
Through many years' combined efforts with the composer Masaru SATO, he left one of the greatest achievements in the Japanese film world in quality as well as in quantity.
In addition to several collections of essays and illustrated play scripts, he was the author of novels such as "Sweet Homes Detective" and "Independence Day of the Toppin Republic." As the author of the original "Vengeance for Sale," he used the pen name Osaku IKUTA, which derived from the name of the ward (Ikuta Ward) in Kawasaki City, where he was living.
He did not like taking a bath, and it was quite often that he took a bath only once or twice a week. Then he was always clad entirely in black so that the cloths would not show the dirt. His hobbies were mountain climbing and skiing, and when he was working as an assistant director, he was often picked up for a movie that had a location shooting in the mountains. In 1960, he directed a film "Daigaku no sanzokutachi" (University bandits), taking advantage of the ski boom at that time.
Family
The director's wife and a film producer, Mineko OKAMOTO, met Okamoto, for the first time in an interview, while he was still a freshman at Toho and she was a student of Waseda University, belonging to the university's movie society. She once made a joint appearance with her husband in a commercial. She supported the director, Kihachi OKAMOTO, publicly in business and privately at home, overtly and covertly. Especially, she made an immense contribution to shooting the three movies produced by the Art Theatre Guild (ATG) and "Rainbow Kids." As Okamoto insisted that he would like to shoot the movies even though they would not be publicly released and only screened on his house's fusuma (sliding doors), she tried all she could to raise the fund for film shooting, by not only mortgaging the house, but also by temporarily keeping the fixed deposit certificates of her acquaintances to borrow the money on them.
In his final years, she was dedicated to the care of her husband, and their life was televised on May 18, 2007 in a NHK documentary program titled "The time given by God: Kihachi OKAMOTO and his wife's 300 days since the notification of cancer." A recreated drama was played by the actors who had intimate relations with him: Hirotaro HONDA (who made his debut as an actor in "The Last Game" was cast in the part of Okamoto, and Naoko OTANI (who made a debut in "The Human Bullet") in the part of Mineko (Mrs. Okamoto).
Mami OKAMOTO, who played the part of Princess Matsue in "Dixieland Daimyo," is their daughter. In "Rainbow Kids," she played a country girl who made friends with one of the kidnappers, and in "Vengeance for Sale"(2001), she also appeared as a woman out for revenge.